This invention relates to communications and, more particularly, to communications through electrical communication networks.
Telephones, and other communication devices, for exchanging electrical communications of audio information through a public switched telephone network (PSTN), have existed for a substantial time and are well understood. Recently, however, telephones have been created that exchange electrical communications of audio information through packet switched networks of the type which computers use to communicate with each other. These telephones use a digitized format that is broken down into discrete message units to represent audible sound. These message units are sent and received through the packet switched network.
Unfortunately, exchanging electrical communications of audio information through a packet switched network presents a variety of problems. For example, when a string of audible sounds, such as a long sentence, is broken into several message units and sent through the packet switched network, some of the message units may not traverse the packet switched network at the same rate. Thus, the audible sounds represented by a first message unit could be transformed into audible sounds at a receiving telephone before the next message unit is received, resulting in a gap in the audible sounds that is at least irritating, if not unintelligible, to the user.
From the foregoing, it may be appreciated that a need has arisen for a method and apparatus for providing a user of a communication device with the ability to control an audio quality of the audible sound generated by the communication device.
According to one form of the present invention, a method and apparatus are provided to address this need, and involve receiving in a communication device electrical communications of audio information that are in a digital format and generating audible sound based on the audio information. The method also includes detecting a user request for a change in an audio quality of the audible sound and responding to detection of the request by facilitating the change in the audio quality of the audible sound.
Another form of the invention involves the provision of a processor, a transceiver, an audio input device, an audio output device, and a user operable input device. The transceiver is coupled to the processor and is operable to receive and send electrical communications of audio information. The audio input device is coupled to the transceiver and is operable to receive audible sound and convert it into electrical communications. The audio output device is also coupled to the transceiver and is operable to generate audible sound based on the audio information in received electrical communications. The user operable input device is coupled to the processor and is operable to instruct the processor to facilitate a change in an audio quality of the audible sound from the audio output device.